'Frontline Mediators' an ethnographic study of online welfare applications at the public library

This paper examines the work of "frontline mediators," a term used by public librarians to describe the practice of facilitating the use of online welfare applications. As welfare agencies closed their offices and required clients to access services online, public librarians operating in low-income communities adopted new practices to facilitate their clients’ use of web applications for welfare and other relevant public services. Pulling from interviews and observations from a multi-year ethnographic study, I discuss the emergence of frontline mediators, and examine the key practices and attributes involved with their work. Frontline mediators care for their clients and their clients’ information needs. Thus, I argue the idea of caring relationships should be at the center of public service design strategy. The frontline mediator case study offers relevant lessons for human-computer interaction and design researchers interested in broader questions of democracy, civic engagement, and public service.